My colleague Amos Guiora always has insightful things to say about the Middle East, as proven by this recent op-ed from the Baltimore Sun. In it he argues that a wedge that has been driven between moderates and extremists in Arab world resulting from Hamas’s constant firing of missiles into Israel and President-elect Obama should take full advantage of this extraordinary development. Seems like a plausible idea to me, although I am skeptical that anything positive will result given the current leadership in Gaza.
Guiora does recount a great quote that seems to explain a lot: Abba Eban famously referring to "the Palestinians never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity." What was Hamas expecting to happen from firing thousands of rockets into Israel?
I believe your colleague, Amos Guiora, is filled with wishful thinking. Based on conversations I've had this weekend with westernized Arabs in the Middle East, I believe a more likely outcome is that the autocratic governments that we like to call "moderate" will be under intense pressure from their populations to show solidarity with Gaza residents rather than continuing to discreetly support Israeli efforts to undercut Hamas.
Of course, a related problem is that there are many people - I'm sure we can find some fine examples in the VC comments section - who simply don't believe there's such a creature as a "moderate Palestinian" or a "moderate Muslim." It's awfully hard to reach out to the moderates if your policymakers think this way!
On January 24, 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council released a statement calling for Israel to lift its "siege" on the Gaza Strip, allow the continued supply of food, fuel, and medicine, and reopen border crossings
Keep in mind that there is no solution to the Middle East conflict that will leave all parties satisfied. The two-state solution would wreak the least havoc on Israel but falls far short of repatriating all of the '48 War refugees, which of course would lead to a Jewish state that is majority Muslim. Palestine would be an unappealing homeland for Israeli Arabs, who currently live far better than do Palestinians. Israel could try offering to compensate refugees who left in 48, to get rid of the thousands of aggrieved with their lives on hold -- not that I believe this would satisfy them.
The Gordian knot was trivial compared to this.
Maybe Israel has been just biding their time since the election of Hamas till the soonest election day Christmas, when they knew they could strike without American interference! Playing the long game!
And it even makes sense, in the local context. Hamas won't distract the Gazans from their dreary (on a good day) lot by pointing to the Arafatopia next door, not when there's F16s overhead; the less dramatic failure of Abbas' PA won't be the fault of Hamas when it's so easy to point to the hated checkpoints.
Matthew K: think asymmetric "good." Being turned into fly food obviously isn't good for the head Hamasholes, but given the stress that the embargo has put on Gaza, they may have correctly thought that they had no choice but to create a distraction or face a widespread local uprising.
If -- and I hope but doubt that this is the case -- OCL is the start of the necessary retaliatory component to make the Gaza withdrawal work for Israel, it will be good for Israel. Depends on what the followup is.
Steve: it depends. If you define "moderate" as "less extreme than this other actual guy we can point to", you can find moderates pretty much in any group -- certainly including the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza -- and there's nothing wrong with that, particularly. It's different, though, from pointing to somebody who speaks (both in English and Arabic) and acts with actual moderation.
The problem is when the people who point to somebody who is only a moderate-by-comparison that Israel make the kind of concessions to him or her (Hanan Ashrawi comes to mind) that would be reasonably demanded on behalf of the moderate kind of moderate.
Probably exactly this. Hamas has been fading in popularity. They aren't particularly good at building a stable society, and the PLO is looking like a better option to many Palestinians. But now they're at war, and its during times of war that people turn to groups like Hamas. The Israelis aren't going to be able to kill all of Hamas, and whenever they leave whatever remains will declare victory. People who three weeks ago wanted Hamas out will find their doubts inexpressable in mainstream conversations, just as war has muted the voices of the Israeli left.
They don't care how many of their leadership you kill - they care whether their movement becomes more or less powerful. This attack is going to make it more powerful, just like the attack in Lebanon made Hizb'allah more powerful. They will happily keep playing this game for as long as Israel wants to play it.
While those governments might wish Hamas to be eradicated, constant media messages (and particularly images) about dead children is fueling popular anger. This puts governments and their people on opposite sides of the line.
They never miss the opportunity to miss the opportunity because they don't want the opportunity. The post is basically textual masturbation; the Arabs, whoever they are, want to exterminate the Jews- forever and always, history bears it out, and they do, because they outright say that's what they want to do.
What a feather in nobody's cap getting these people to sit down and
negotiatelie.Why do people insist on repeatedly placing their hand on the hot Palestinian stove?
Then we have to just convince Israel that a full and viable Palestinian state needs a viable and competent ARMY, not just a police force. Otherwise, we are stuck in a situation where foreign proxies are too strong to be challenged by anyone but Israel and so these fights break out.
I too thought Eban's bon mot was idiotic right from the start.
Typical bien pensant. None so blind as those who will not see.
If you have a comment about spelling, typos, or format errors, please e-mail the poster directly rather than posting a comment.
Comment Policy: We reserve the right to edit or delete comments, and in extreme cases to ban commenters, at our discretion. Comments must be relevant and civil (and, especially, free of name-calling). We think of comment threads like dinner parties at our homes. If you make the party unpleasant for us or for others, we'd rather you went elsewhere. We're happy to see a wide range of viewpoints, but we want all of them to be expressed as politely as possible.
We realize that such a comment policy can never be evenly enforced, because we can't possibly monitor every comment equally well. Hundreds of comments are posted every day here, and we don't read them all. Those we read, we read with different degrees of attention, and in different moods. We try to be fair, but we make no promises.
And remember, it's a big Internet. If you think we were mistaken in removing your post (or, in extreme cases, in removing you) -- or if you prefer a more free-for-all approach -- there are surely plenty of ways you can still get your views out.